🌿 Folk Prescriptions

"Food accumulation" is a common pediatric condition. It can cause chest tightness, abdominal distension, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, and if untreated, affects child growth and development. Tuina therapy for food accumulation has high efficacy and warrants wider application.
Etiology and Pathogenesis
1. Overeating: Due to irregular feeding, improper diet, or excessive consumption of rich, greasy foods, leading to damage of the spleen and stomach, impaired transformation and transportation functions, disrupted ascending and descending movements, and stagnation of food and milk in the digestive tract.
2. Deficient Stomach Yang: Excessive stomach yang leads to overfullness without clearance. Deficient stomach yang causes bloating and indigestion, with food easily stagnating. Consuming cold raw foods easily damages the stomach.
3. Deficient Spleen Yang: Deficient spleen yang results in undigested food, food retention, epigastric fullness, and abdominal distension.
Clinical Manifestations
Epigastric fullness and stuffiness, belching with sour odor, foul-smelling stools, strong-smelling flatulence, poor appetite or markedly reduced hunger. Some children may experience anorexia, abdominal pain, or crying.
Tuina Treatment
Food accumulation should be understood as a "syndrome." Multiple causes exist, but specific etiology is often hard to identify clinically, hence termed "primary food accumulation." When a cause is identified, it's called "secondary food accumulation." Secondary cases may or may not respond to tuina. Thus, tuina primarily applies to primary food accumulation. For primary cases, different techniques are used based on type.
1. Food Accumulation with Cold Pattern
Therapeutic Principle: Warm the center, strengthen the spleen, and eliminate food stagnation.
Techniques: Pushing, kneading, palm rubbing, and pressing.
Acupoints and Areas: Spleen Earth Point, Wrist Yin-Yang Points, Three Passes Point, Eight Gates Point, Zusanli Point, umbilicus and surrounding abdominal area.
Operational Methods and Requirements:
① Tonify Spleen Earth Point: Two methods exist—one using finger rubbing on the Spleen Earth Point; the other involves bending the patient’s thumb interphalangeal joint and pushing from distal to proximal along the radial side of the thumb. Either method may be chosen, pushing 300 times.
② Separate and Push: Patient’s palm faces upward. Therapist uses index, middle, ring, and little fingers of both hands to support the patient’s hand from dorsal sides of wrist and hand. Both thumbs start from the midpoint of the transverse crease on the palmar surface and separate toward ulnar and radial sides of the wrist crease, approximately 100 times.
③ Push Three Passes Point: Since this treats "food accumulation with cold," push Three Passes Point more frequently—about 600 times.
④ Transport Eight Gates Point: Patient’s palm faces upward. Therapist uses the distal end of one finger’s palmar surface to perform finger rubbing on the Eight Gates Point, known as "transporting Eight Gates," approximately 300 times.
⑤ Separate and Push Abdominal Yin-Yang Points: Patient lies supine. Therapist uses either thumb or index and middle fingers of both hands to separately push from the lower end of the sternum along the costal arches to the mid-axillary lines on both sides, approximately 200 times.
⑥ Knead and Rub Umbilical Area: Patient lies supine. Therapist uses one palm to perform palm rubbing on the umbilicus and surrounding area for several minutes, then performs palm kneading or palm root kneading on the umbilicus and abdomen to generate a strong warming sensation.
2. Food Accumulation with Heat Pattern
Therapeutic Principle: Clear heat, strengthen the spleen, and resolve food stagnation.
Techniques: Pushing, finger pressing, palm rubbing, palm kneading.
Acupoints and Areas: Spleen Earth Point, Wrist Yin-Yang Points, Three Passes Point, Six Fu Points, Four Horizontal Lines Point, Outer Labor Palace Point, Abdominal Yin-Yang Points, Zusanli Point.
Operational Methods and Requirements:
① Clear Spleen Earth Point: Patient’s palm faces upward. Therapist uses finger pushing technique, pushing from proximal to distal end of the thumb, known as "clearing Spleen Earth," 300 times.
② Tonify Spleen Earth Point: First apply "Clear Spleen Earth" method, then follow with "Tonify Spleen Earth" method—known as "clear first, then tonify." This approach is commonly used for food accumulation with heat.
③ Separate and Push Wrist Yin-Yang Points: Approximately 100 times.
④ Push Three Passes Point: Approximately 200 times.
⑤ Retreat Six Fu Points: Approximately 600 times. The number of retreats exceeds pushes of Three Passes Point because this is "food accumulation with heat."
⑥ Push Four Horizontal Lines Points: Four Horizontal Lines Points refer to four distinct locations collectively. Here, they are located at the palmar transverse creases of the index, middle, ring, and little fingers. Therapist uses pushing technique sequentially on each location for several minutes.
⑦ Press Outer Labor Palace Point: Outer Labor Palace Point aligns directly with the center of the palm (Labor Palace Point). Therapist performs finger pressing in clockwise direction for dozens of repetitions.